The  Design  of  the  Survey

For the purpose of finding out the connections between the characteristics of people living in contemporary society and Otaku, a questionnaire is designed in a way which would focus on how Net-Gen spends their spare time regarding to their hobbies. Neil Selwyn, Stephen Gorard and John Furlong (2005) contented in their article that “now the internet is popularly celebrated to be transforming all sectors of everyday life – from the economy to civic society, commerce to leisure – hastened by the emergence of new internet-capable platforms such as the mobile telephone, digital television and games console.” (Selwyn, Gorard, & Furlong, 2005, p. 6) Since Internet became the key element of people’s life after the emergence of the digital era, whether as the tool or the object of people’s obsession, the influence of the Internet is going to be the major concern throughout the whole survey. In particular, this study aims at understanding how the Internet has integrated into Net-Gen’s daily lives and their social interactions, while obtaining a broader overview of people’s attitudes towards the Internet and, indeed, to identify those users who come closest to resembling Otaku who uses the Internet daily to perform a range of obsessive activities.

The goal of the questionnaire is to find to what extent people depend on Internet in their spare time for pursuing their hobbies. The survey is based on a questionnaire sent out to 30 participants, which are divided into three groups according to their age. Since the scale of the survey is relatively small, it is unpractical to expand the survey onto international scale. So in order to retain the credibility of the survey, the target group is limited to only Chinese citizens who reside either inside China or aboard. Among all the 30 participants, 3 are residing aboard and the other 27 are

living in the main land China. The answers given by the participants who grow up in the similar cultural background make it easier to construct the solid analysis.

3.2.1 The Age of the Target Group

Three age groups represented in the survey are following: 21 to 30, 31 to 40, and 41 to 50. Young people between 20 and 30 are on the verge of adulthood but can still have clear vision of what childhood was like.

College students are an ideal study group for life histories of interactive media. They are young adults whose memory of childhood and teenage media use is relatively fresh but who are mature enough to have started building lifetime patterns of media use. And, as noted previously, this group’s formative years correspond to accelerated growth and usage of interactive technologies. (Mcmillan & Morrison, 2006, p. 76)

Participants whose age is over 41 are also included because John Holmes (2011) proposes in his article “They suggest a belief that something is fundamentally distinct about the ways the generation in question appropriates digital technology in comparison with older generations.” (Holms, 2011, p. 1105) By comparing the age groups, one can have a better view of how different generations are reacting to interactive media. At the beginning, teenagers were also taken in into the consideration because Holms (2011) wrote “[…] a belief that young people are universally, naturally and deeply engaged with the internet and its potentialities.”

(Holms, 2011, p. 1105). However when the level of accessibility of the Internet is being measured, the fundamental rule has to be for the participants to have full access to Internet according to their own free will. Usually teenagers under 20 are still in high school, mostly living with their parents, as a result either teachers or parents may monitor their access to Internet. In order to have the overall picture of

their access to Internet, it has to be their own decision on how much time they spend on Internet doing exactly what they want. University students these days grew up with video games and many began to use the Internet before they started university studies. In 2002, a research conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that university students are early adopters and heavy users of the Internet.

(Jones, 2002). So the participants are targeted in such way that they have the full control of their free time after the study or work.

3.2.2 Gender and the Language

Since the survey is based on a small sample, the gender factor will not be taken into the consideration. It is mentioned that in Neil Selwyn, Stephen Gorard and John Furlong’s (2005) article that gender is not the key element that influences the use of Internet

Thus, it is not being an older adult or a women per se which makes you an internet user or non-user, but the opportunities, needs, motivations, material circumstances and lived experiences of being an older adult or a woman which all amount to (non) engagement. (Selwyn, Gorard, &

Furlong, 2005, p. 20)

So the gender of the participants will be random with no interference throughout the process of disseminating the questionnaire. However there is one factor that might influence the result of the research and that is the language of the questionnaire. The questionnaire is conducted in English with no Chinese translation, which, to a certain degree, limits the participants of the survey.¹¹ Considering the level of the language of the questionnaire, all three groups of the participants will need to be able to comprehend the questionnaire in English. This

11   Given  that  English  was  the  most  influential  foreign  language  around  the  world,  it  was  also  taken  very   seriously  in  China  as  well.  English  courses  were  given  from  the  first  year  of  primary  school  in  past   decades  and  some  parents  even  started  to  take  their  kids  to  study  English  when  they  are  still  in   kindergarten.  

means most of the participants had to have advanced knowledge of English in order to fill in the questionnaire. What was potentially problematic was the age group between 41 and 50, since they did not have such extensive English language studies while they were in school. So in order to be able to answer the questionnaire, they should have higher education background.

3.2.3 The Design of the Questionnaire

Identities, especially among the young, are fluid and complex (Osgerby, 1998) and difficult to measure or hold constant. This means that tangible points of reference, such as the sites in which identities are shaped, need to be found to understand variations in the lives and destinies of young people. (Lee, 2005, p. 318)

Even though the time a person spends at work or at university matters great deal throughout one’s life, it is home where he or she could be relax and completely free from the interference of others. The activities people conduct in such environment do help in shaping their characters. The questionnaire is going to focus on how people spend their spare time in order to take a close look at how people in this generation are intertwining with Internet in their daily life, processing the unlimited amount of information presented online. Despite the fact that technologies are neutral, they can be shaped within particular contexts and can be packaged in ways to make them appealing and relevant to the lifestyles of those who are normally bypassed and uninterested in technology. There will also be questions, which aim at finding out people’s general knowledge about Otaku.

With a general idea of their attitude towards Otaku, they are also asked to answer whether they think they are Otaku or not as a reference to show the differences or similarities about their online behavior.

There are 24 questions in the questionnaire, which lead to different aspects of

people’s habit of using the Internet, but there are also questions aiming at finding out how the participants arrange their private time. In general the questionnaire is categorized into 5 major groups of questions: (1) who is (and who is not) using the internet; (2) for what purposes people are using the internet; (3) how are they interacting with the Internet and how much time do they spend doing that; (4) how much Internet has changed people’s life; and (5) people’s knowledge about the concept of Otaku and their opinion about the possibility of becoming one.

In the end “At an individual level, ‘the internet’ is not one technology but means different things to different people and is used in different ways for different purposes. ” (Selwyn, Gorard, & Furlong, 2005, p. 7) A survey like this can reveal how contemporary people are functioning in the age of digital technology by offering the detailed information about their relationship with Internet.